Sun. Aug. 28, 2011 (Jo White)

Jo White (Regent College graduate from New Zealand) spoke on two seemingly unrelated texts, John 20.1-18 and Song of Songs 3.1-5. Mary Magdalene was deeply involved with Jesus' life as one of his followers (possibly even traveling with the group), a witness to his death, burial and resurrection, and most likely as a financial and logistical supporter. Her nickname was Magdala, or "watchtower", and she certainly did keep watch over Jesus, with the gospels repeatedly recording her watchfulness and citing her first in lists of women. The Song of Songs, by contrast, is a book of erotic poetry which has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways over the centuries. In addition to eroticism, it explores themes of yearning and longing, loss and searching, discovery and joy. Jo suggests that the writer of the Gospel according to John possibly followed the literary model in the Song of Songs when writing the 20th chapter. In scripture, gardens are a motif for meeting and for intimacy; both stories are set in a garden, both have a woman searching, both women found watchmen/angels instead of the beloved, and both finally found the beloved. But then the stories purposefully diverge. Mary M. names Jesus as "teacher" (rather than "beloved"), she is not allowed to embrace Jesus (unlike her counterpart in the Song of Songs), and she is told to talk to the disciples (rather than to the daughters of Jerusalem). Jo then asked us, whom are we seeking? Who is seeking you? Are you a watchtower? [JEK]

Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, August 28th, 2011 using your browser's preferred media player.

Sun. Aug. 21, 2011 (Janice Kreider)

A visit to Janice Kreider’s by idealistic students excited about food security led her to contemplate the perils to our food supply, from ‘food deserts’ in major cities to radiation contamination. Noting that we’re never too far from hunger in our carefully-balanced society, we take food for granted where our ancestors fleeing Europe and Russia couldn’t afford to. In the time of Judges and early kings of Israel, awareness of hunger was acute, and proxy confrontations between Baal and the God of all things formed the foundation of the story of Elijah and the Widow of Arephath. During a drought and famine like today’s in Africa, Elijah’s needs were supplied by God - first by the ravens, and then by the widow whose inexhaustible store of basic foodstuffs never dried up, and last by the raising of her son from the dead - leading the widow to a perhaps-tentative faith in the God of all things. Of this (and other) Biblical miracles, Wendell Berry wrote “I don’t think it’s enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is best read and understood outdoors... Passages that, within walls seem improbably or incredible, seem outdoors [to be] merely natural.” Janice raised a number of points to consider as we ponder the precariousness of our existence. In famine, the community failed to care for the widow, but God cared when Baal could not. How will our own society meet the same evil? Will we learn the same lesson of salvation through faithfulness? Such evil has consequences that ricochet for decades longer than we expect, and in the past, the church has often proved itself inadequate to meet the test of faithfulness. What will be different next time? Will we act consonant with “The Word of The Lord”, risk what the widow risked in trusting a God most of us know no better than she did, or will we sell our souls to avarice and look out only for our own? The opportunity is here every day, right now; if we forget, Jesus encourages us to remind ourselves, as Janice did, with communal prayer from Matthew 6; “Our Father, who art in heaven... give us this day our bread for tomorrow...” [AP]

Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, August 21st, 2011 using your browser's preferred media player.

Sun. Aug. 14, 2011 (Lydia Cruttwell)

Regent student Lydia Cruttwell focused on Luke’s brief account of the well known Mary/Martha story: two single women living with their brother. Drawing on her experience working in a bakery, Lydia talked about the amount of work involved in meal preparation. Even if Martha wanted to prepare a simply meal, the complexities at the time were enormous compared to our day: no refrigeration meant meat had to be freshly slaughtered, no yeast, and wheat had to be ground before baking bread. Martha, steeped in expectations to be good hostess, chose to welcome Jesus and his disciples. Martha publicly shames her sister in front of her guests. Jesus sweeps away her concerns and says Mary made the right choice. “If I were Martha I’d be angry,” said Lydia. Lydia then posed three questions about the story: Who is the host? Who is the guest? What is being served? When Jesus comes, he welcomes us – he is the host. Mary found this truth; Martha could not see beyond the literal food. If we pay attention to the guests we’ll begin to see Christ. (HN)

Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, August 14th, 2011 using your browser's preferred media player.

Sun. Aug. 7, 2011 (Henry Neufeld)

Henry Neufeld continued our summer's series on Women in the Bible by talking on Puah and Shiphrah (who?) As midwives to the Israelites in Egypt (Exodus 1.5-2.8), these gals were ordered to control the Jewish population by killing all the newborn males. While this bizzare strategy would hardly have curtailed the population, it does follow the genre of story in which a powerful personality attempts to stave off rivalry by killing off babies of the ruler's sex (e.g., Herod). In this particular story, the baby Moses was hidden in a special basket, rescued by one of Pharaoh's daughters, and nursed by his very own mother. Puah and Shiphrah defied national law, possibly committing the first act of civil disobedience recorded in scripture [Jesus later broke the law by breaking the federal seal on his tomb when rising from death]. This civil disobedience made the eventual Exodus possible. These two women are still honoured by some Jews today. So this is a story about subversive women--Puah and Shiphrah, also a story about the subversive actions of the mother of Moses and her daughter, to say nothing of Pharaoh's daughter. Each of these women used 'creative thinking', sometimes lying, in order to oppose unethical laws. Thoreau once argued that Christians should not allow governments to alter their consciences. Where are the Puahs and Shiphrahs today? For example, why did none of our churches speak out against the war in the last election? [JEK]

Listen to the sermon audio MP3 recording from Sunday, August 7th, 2011 using your browser's preferred media player.